MONEYISM
The Cancer Ravaging Earth
And
How to Defeat It
MONEY. MONEY. MONEY.
That’s right. It’s all about . . . money.
And why not? Money is as pervasive as the air we breathe. And almost as important, because it affects every aspect of our lives: where we work, where we live, how we live, and even how long we live. So money consumes our thoughts and controls our lives. It drives our ambitions, colors our dreams, sparks our disputes, and stokes our anxieties.
Money. It’s here, there, and everywhere. No wonder it’s considered with the same degree of inevitability and blind acceptance as if it were an unavoidable force of nature. Such as gravity. Or electromagnetism.
But money is not a force of nature. It’s an idea. A concept. A figment of the human imagination made real only to the extent that we allow it to rule our lives and our relationships with one another, which is exactly what we have allowed it to do for far too long, and at a terrible price in human suffering. However, there are two good reasons to believe that the time has finally come to break money’s destructive, debilitating, and suffocating grip on human society:
Because we must.
And because we can.
BUT FIRST, WHAT IS MONEY? And what purpose does it serve? In dictionaries and economics textbooks money is defined universally with the same three words: medium of exchange. And its ascribed purpose is to facilitate economic activity as illustrated by such examples as the ease with which it allows a shoemaker to exchange his labor for bread without having to search for a baker in need of shoe repair.
On that primitive and simplistic level, the concept of money no doubt did serve some useful purpose in times past. Today, however, money serves a far different and insidious purpose as reflected in a widening contradiction between the definition of money in theory and its practice in reality.
Those same dictionaries that define money as a medium of exchange also define exchange. And exchange means to give or transfer in consideration of something received, as an equivalent. Something of equal value. That’s the theory. In reality, however, parties engaged in an economic transaction with money serving as the medium are not engaged in a mutual search for equivalency. In reality, in economic transactions between buyers and sellers, employers and employees, borrowers and lenders, and renters and landlords, each side seeks to advantage itself at the expense of the other. And it’s this persistent and relentless competitive spirit, in transactions large and small, that pervades the entire global economic system like a toxic cloud driven by a frenzied, worldwide, no-holds-barred free-for-all in the universal struggle for money.
Money, therefore, is not a medium of exchange, as its theoretical definition implies. Rather, money, as utilized in the real world, is a medium of competition. And with its ability to digitize, and thereby dehumanize, every economic transaction, money has become both the facilitator and the score-keeping mechanism for the Mother of All Monopoly Games, a game in which we are all required to participate whether we like it or not, and a game in which every individual on the planet competes — directly or indirectly, on one level or another — with everyone else on the planet.
And it’s also a game played around the world according to three competing ideologies or isms — capital-ism, social-ism, and commune-ism — each claiming to be the one true economic religion. But despite their political and cultural differences, all three are indistinguishable from one another in their common pursuit of money above all else, and in their use of money as a powerful instrument of control.
Call the game they play Moneyopoly.
And call the ideology they share moneyism.
THE PROPONENTS OF MONEYISM — call them moneyists — are fond of characterizing money as the lifeblood of the economy. It is not. Labor, human labor, is the economy’s lifeblood. Money is a cancer that is attacking the lifeblood by diverting a growing proportion of the workforce away from the economic system and into the financial system.
That’s right. It’s not all one system that we commonly refer to as “the economy” or “the economic system.” It is little understood or appreciated that we are living in a global society that is shaped by the interaction between two systems. We have an economic system that, by definition, produces, distributes, and consumes goods and services. And we have a financial system that controls the economic system. The problem is that these two systems are at sharp odds with one another in the purposes they were created to serve. The purpose of the economic system is to provide the life-sustaining goods and services required by the population. The purpose of the financial system is to exploit the economic system for financial gain.
Unfortunately, these two systems have become conflated under the single rubric of economics, and have become so intertwined that it is nearly impossible to tell where one begins and the other ends, leading to the widespread but mistaken belief that we can’t have one without the other, that is, we can’t have an economic system without a financial system.
Economists must bear responsibility for this misconception due to their failure to distinguish between the two systems and by their mysteriously choosing to call themselves economists when their primary interest is finance. When economists warn that a country’s economy is at risk, they are not referring to the country’s productive capacity but rather to its financial system. They should call themselves financialists.
The unfortunate consequence of this melding of the two systems into one in the public consciousness is that it camouflages moneyiism’s role in society’s unsustainable dysfunction,
In the sixties, it was the brilliant futurist R. Buckminster Fuller — whose many inventions included the geodesic dome — who never ceased to remind us that we are all fellow passengers and crewmembers alike aboard Spaceship Earth. He also took note of the troubling dichotomy of the workforce and expressed the opinion that, at that time, in the United States, the most advanced economy in the world, 60 percent of the jobs produced nothing of life-sustaining value.
Today, 50-plus years later, it feels like 80 percent!
If this is true, it means that, in the developed world, out of every five workers, only one is employed in the economic system, tasked with producing the essential goods and services needed to sustain all the rest of us, while the other four are busily engaged in the care and feeding of some aspect or other of the financial system, which produces nothing of life-sustaining value while consuming enormous amounts of precious human and natural resources.
This situation, viewed from the broadest perspective, clarifies moneyism’s role in the failure of the economic system to fulfill its purpose of caring for the needs of the people. It also testifies to moneyism’s surpassingly successful effort at fulfilling its own purpose of seeking financial gain.
Therein lie both the cause and the cure of society’s unsustainable dysfunction.
WE HUMANS HAVE LEARNED A LOT about this planet and how it works. Collectively, down through the ages and piece by piece, we have assembled a deep understanding of Earth’s physical, chemical, biological, and electromagnetic forces, and how they operate. As a result, we are capable of the most dazzling achievements. You might even say that we have taken over control of our own evolution. It appears there is nothing we cannot do once we decide to do it.
But as impressive as our accomplishments may be, it is troubling to consider what we appear determined not to do, that is, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and care for the sick, despite the fact that, in our anything-is-possible era, such human suffering is easily assuaged. Which begs the question, Why, then, have we not done so? Lack of money is the usual excuse, but the real answer lies elsewhere.
It should come as no surprise that an ideology, such as moneyism, that is driven by competition between its adherents, will produce both winners and losers. And it should come a no surprise that the winners, with the power and influence of their winnings, will use their advantages to continue the pursuit of an ever-widening gulf between themselves and the losers.
There are plentiful attempts to praise the benefits of this competitive game. It’s a familiar refrain: competition forces everyone to excel, work harder, be more productive, become inventive, produce better products. Then, if the “free” market is permitted to work its magic, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” will guide human activity in the most productive and desirable directions, and the entire human race will benefit, because “a rising tide lifts all boats.” As for individuals, if they work hard, are thrifty, honest, and conscientious, and if they adopt the entrepreneurial spirit, and truly believe in themselves, they will surely prosper.
Nonsense. This game is rigged. The truth is that hard work, conscientiously and honestly performed, is no guarantee of success. There is, in fact, considerable evidence to support the belief that the reverse is true, that in our competitive, financially controlled economic system the decent, hard-working people are the ones who get screwed, while those who are devious and manipulative and clever enough to figure out ways to advantage themselves within the workings of this labyrinthine financial system, and its complex rules, with a bit of good luck thrown in, are the ones who walk off with the spoils. If they are born at the right time and in the right place or marry into the right family; if they hire the top lawyers, accountants, and investment advisors; if they learn how to execute a leveraged buyout, downsize a corporation, cook the books, lobby the Congress, bribe the authorities, romance the bankers, devise exotic financial instruments, and trade stocks on insider information, then the numbers in their bank accounts, their scores, will keep rising: five million, a hundred million, five hundred million, a billion, three billion. It is never enough, and the bigger the number, the more extravagant the praise. As the faces of these masters of the universe appear on the covers of Fortune, Forbes, and Bloomberg Business Week magazines, and their successes are glorified and their lifestyles admired in glowing profiles on the pages within, the workers who made it all possible struggle to stay financially afloat.
The mind struggles to grasp the magnitude of a billionaire’s wealth. For the great majority of Earth’s inhabitants, a million dollars is a vast sum, and to become a millionaire would be a comfortable and satisfying, but rare, achievement. Out of a world population of 7.8 billion, only 46.8 million (less than one per cent) have achieved that level of success.
But while the wealth of a millionaire may require a stretch of the imagination for the vast majority, the wealth of a billionaire is arguably beyond comprehension. Try to get your head around the fact that a billionaire is a millionaire a thousand times over! Then try to grasp that, according to the latest count, there are 2,755 billionaires on the planet collectively controlling more than $13 trillion of monetized wealth.
This level of wealth concentration at a time of widespread human suffering and deprivation is obscene and morally repugnant, especially since wealth concentration ranks as the primary cause of human deprivation. Such extremes of wealth and poverty are prima facie evidence that the financial system, at its very core, is fatally flawed and ultimately unsustainable.
Nevertheless, birthing billionaires appears to be moneyism’s proudest achievement, or so it would seem from comments by Steve Forbes, Editor-in-Chief of Forbes magazine (that self-proclaimed “capitalist tool”).
“Who cares whether someone is worth $2 billion or $6 billion,” he asks in an editorial in one of his annual celebratory surveys of billionaires and billionaire culture.
“We do,” he answers. “That personal stash is a critical barometer of how well the nation — and, to a degree, the world — is doing.”
The cover of Forbes’ latest billionaire issue continues its defense of the indefensible by gleefully declaring, “A NEW BILLIONAIRE EVERY DAY – As the world suffered over the past year, great fortunes were forged at an unprecedented rate. The dynamics underlying them point to a better future for everyone.”
Not so. Billionaire wealth is a measure of how well billionaires are doing, but also a jarring reminder of how poorly the rest of us, and the planet itself, are doing. The evidence well establishes that in good times, the rich do very well, but in bad times, they do even better.
The latest figures highlight this absurdity. Last year, Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX) ) was worth $22 billion; a year later, he’s worth $151 billion and is now the second wealthiest man on the planet. Last year, Jeff Bezos (Amazon) was worth $131 billion; a year later, he’s worth $177 billion. And so on, down the list. During the past year the population of billionaire nation grew by 680, and its collective wealth rose by 60 percent, all during the year of the pandemic when social chaos and fear were unleashed upon a fragile planet
And to what end? Bezos and Musk , the world Moneyopoly champions, show the way. They have embarked upon a space race, once the activity of nations, but now just another example of the principle that, if you have enough money, you can do or have nearly anything you desire, regardless of its impact upon the environment or society-at-large.
However, since greed apparently knows no limits, and however wealthy a person may be, there is always a larger number to strive for, it is likely the race will soon begin to see who will become the first trillionaire. (that would be a a billionaire a thousand times over.)
With greed run amok, the pursuit of corporate profits by these titans of business has yielded a legacy of life-threatening climate change, reckless natural resource depletion, mountains and oceans of hazardous waste, and shameful environmental degradation, all the while inflicting suffering, deprivation, inequity, and social injustice upon the rest of the population. No need to roll out a detailed bill of particulars here and now. We are already saturated with frightening reminders that we are caught in an accelerating vortex of destructive forces, unleashed in the pursuit of financial gain. Meanwhile, billionaires flourish while the planet, in extremis, gasps for air.
BUT NOW, SUDDENLY AND WITHOUT WARNING: THE RECKONING. The global financial system was already trembling on the brink of the precipice when along came Covid-19 and pushed it over the edge. Financial inequity was slowing the economic process, a worrisome development for moneyism, which, like all Ponzi schemes, requires continuous growth. If there had been any hope of engineering a recovery, that fantasy was blown apart by Covid-19. The plunge in economic activity was swift and devastating. Experts confessed they had no idea how or when all this is going to end, but given the amount of damage already done, it is now clear that we are watching the final death throes of moneyism, the collapse of the largest and longest-running Ponzi scheme of all time. And when Ponzi schemes collapse, there is no way to put them back together again. It would be folly to try.
According to R. Buckminster Fuller, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
It was Fuller’s life-long dream to find a way to make the world work for all humanity. One strategy he pursued but never fully realized was something he called The World Game. An inventory was to be taken of all the planet’s human and natural resources, as well as all of humankind’s needs. Then, teams of experts were to compete in finding a way to match the needs with available resources, which is the essential purpose of a successful economic system, thereby making the world work for all humanity.
The Whole Earth Design Project (WEDP) is an iteration of that idea. The objective is to design, in cyberspace, an ecologically and environmentally sustainable economic system capable of providing every individual on the planet with all of life’s essentials as a template for the reorganization of the economic system in the real world. This will be a collaborative effort, expert-guided and data-driven. (www.design.thecoalescence.net )
Planned as a four-stage effort, Stage I will be devoted to conducting a feasibility study to confirm that the project’s objective is attainable. To conduct this study, we have targeted the following ten of life’s essentials: clean and safe air, water, food, clothing, and shelter, as well as access to communication, information, transportation, health care, and energy. And we are in the process of identifying the individuals and organizations around the world most knowledgeable and experienced in each of these ten economic sectors.
We plan to organize ten teams of volunteer researchers (you could be one of them) to survey the experts for their consensus answer to the question: Do we possess sufficient human and natural resources, along with the appropriate scientific knowledge and technological expertise, to fulfill the WEDP objective of providing universal access to all of life’s essentials?
We expect the answer to be a resounding Yes! There is enough of everything essential for everyone! If so, then on to Stages II, III, and IV! (See the website for details. )
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO OVERSTATE THE IMPORTANCE of this moment in human history. Powerful forces at work in the world today are propelling us toward an extraordinary event — a flashpoint — in the evolutionary history of this planet, an event matched in significance on only two previous occasions.
The first extraordinary event took place incomprehensible eons ago with the emergence, out of the agitated primordial stew, of a complex assemblage of molecules with the ability to reproduce itself, setting in motion the evolution of the spectacular variety of living organisms inhabiting Earth today, including homo sapiens.
The second extraordinary event was the emergence in the human species of a uniquely high level of intelligence, resulting in an explosive acceleration of evolutionary change. Suddenly, lightning-quick technological invention, rather than biological diversity and natural selection, began driving the evolutionary process, and in a few ticks of the evolutionary clock, the human species developed characteristics and abilities far beyond that of any other earthbound species.
And now, we find ourselves racing toward the third extraordinary event, an event for which the emergence of life and the emergence of human intelligence were but dim preludes. Call that event The Coalescence, the great coming together of all humanity, thereby lifting the human race onto another and higher plane of existence.
Given the chaotic state of world society, this optimistic vision of the future must seem wildly off the mark. Not so. The most powerful weapon available in our epic struggle against the lethality of money, as well as well as in support of the life-affirming objective of The Coalescence, is communication. Accordingly, the essence of The Coalescence is connectivity.
We are living in what could rightly be called the Age of Communication, and we are both its beneficiaries and its victims, depending upon the purpose to which it is employed at any one time. By far, the greatest amount of data saturating the electromagnetic ether is employed in the service of moneyism and the financial system to which it has given birth for the sole purpose of pursuing financial gain.
In an attempt to reveal the obvious, it is the intent of the WEDP to expose the cost of maintaining the financial system (in terms of labor rather than monetarily) as against the cost of actually producing and distributing goods and services. In doing so we will be using the Internet and its extraordinary capabilities for education and organization.
For whatever reason, it appears that this is a comparison no one chooses to make. But if you are one of those who see the obvious, please join us. With a straightforward research project that is not very complicated, and in a short time, we will make the obvious, obvious. We will unveil, with the fanfare of a thousand metaphorical trumpets, a case beyond dispute and thereby spark a movement that will take us across the threshold toward which humanity has been striving since the emergence of human intelligence.
To succeed in this collective effort, we need your feedback, so please offer a comment. We also urge you to share this statement with all your contacts, no doubt including some who will be happy to read it, perhaps even support it. If you believe this is a useful effort, with the potential to have a positive effect, then please volunteer. Or at least subscribe to our newsletter to keep informed of our progress. There may be a point at which you decide to jump in and get involved. And finally, with more than a bit of irony, any financial assistance you can offer would be greatly appreciated and helpful
THE IDEOLOGY OF MONEYISM HAS FAILED. Our task now is to create a better way of living together on this planet. That new way must be founded on an ideology — long proclaimed but short on acceptance — that affirms that, as humans, we are all equal, and each and every one of us is worthy of full participation in life’s potential. Call that new ideology . . .
HUMANISM
That’s our journey, from Moneyism to Humanism.
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Great Post! Thank you for all the work.
Walter. I am with you all the way. I am at the moment sharpening my pitch fork and will meet you at the barricades. I would like to quote Thomas Piketty from his great book “Capital in the 21st Century” Around page 396 0f 700 the quote is “Private wealth is built on public poverty” This is exactly what our financial system is constructed to accomplish. He also mentions there are only three ways to change this system and level the field so all can participate in the game. 1. War, where every thing and all personal wealth is destroyed. 2. Revolution, where the heads of the financial and political system are cut off and replaced. 3. Taxation. where total wealth is reasonably distributed and the poor can share so no one goes hungry, homeless or uneducated.
I applaud your insight, perseverence and courage.
Dear Other Walter ~ Thank you for the citation and the quotes. I am looking them up, and ordering the book. Walter Szykitka could now add the fourth dimension: COVID-19 can also change the system and (almost) level the field, unfortunately to abject poverty for the majority of the population of the once-mighty USA!
Just read the article on Moneyism. What a wonderful, easy to understand explanation about the difference between money–as a medium of exchange–and finance, as I understood it, sort of the corporatization of that exchange. It made me understand that it might someday be possible to meet the basic needs of every American without the necessity of anything ‘trickling down’. And the whole world system could be fair for perhaps the first time in recorded history. Here’s to ‘The Coalescence’.
The multifaceted aspects of moneyism:
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1APWK_enUS915US915&source=univ&tbm=isch&q=moneyism&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjjqeDB2sjrAhVbg3IEHTOfCeQQsAR6BAgKEAE&biw=1600&bih=757
Thank you, Walter. I bought your big, fat, everything book back in the early 1970s, and still refer to it often ~ nowadays with a magnifying gleass (I’m 79). I joined your WEDP before COVID-19 hit, and in the exegencies of coping, I forgot all about WEDP. Thanks for reminding me! I am hereby volunteering ~ although what a semi-locked-down 79-year-old can do may not be much.
Walter, thank you for thinking of me and sending me the information on the financial report. Money is a necessary element of the daily life as we know it. I believe that the more important valve is just having a really happy life, however you define what is your happiness in your life. Makes me think of Gandhi and his saying that this world has enough for everyone’s need but not enough for people’s greed.
Thanks for such a cogent analysis of our current situation. Makes so much sense. But, given that the greedy, in large numbers, will always be among us, how can moneyism be stopped, or what can it be realistically replaced with?
Money facilitates greed. If there is no money, there would be no symbol for the greedy to use to express their greed. In what way could the greedy continue to be greedy in a world without money? If 99 percent of the population finally came to understand the true nature of money and what it is doing to humanity and decided it wasn’t worth it and walked away, what could the greedy do other than steal your stuff? How would the economy work without money? just as it does now at the start and then more and more smoothly and efficiently as time goes on, all eventually evolving into a communication system that handles a not-very=complicated job of matching human needs with existing resources. If you cant imagine how that could possibly work, does that mean we’re stuck with hat we’ve got? What do you think the future holds? What’s your advice?
If I wanted a custom drilled bowling ball, how would I go about getting one? Or if I wanted a Tesla to help reduce carbon emissions, what would I have to do and how long would it take? Neither the bowling ball nor the Tesla seem to me to examples of greed.
Tom, the wonderful thing about money is that, if you have enough of it, you can have whatever you want, including a custom-drilled bowling ball or an electric-powered automobile. and, if you’re greedy, you ca have as many as you want whether you need them r not. Think Jay Leno’s automobiles and Imelda Marcos’s shoes. The question is whether whether that wonderfulness is so wonderful if the system that makes it possible means someone else has to go hungry. However, I can imagine an organic process whereby one of your pals in the bowling community will custom drill a bowling ball for you because he likes you. And the guys and gals at the automobile factory who love making automobiles will give you one when you show up and offer to help out in the plant cafeteria. Might something like that work for you?
What if I bowl alone, and have no bowling pals? Or if I did, what if the guy at the bowling lanes doesn’t like me? And if everyone who wanted an energy efficient Tesla needed to work in the cafeteria, there would hardly be enough room. I think the real enemy is greed, not reasonable possessions.
We need money to price goods and services, we need currency to facilitate exchanges both domestic and international. We cannot abolish money and currency. Matching human needs with existing resources sound like communism which nobody needs. We need work and remuneration. Most countries do not have a wide disparity in remuneration. Entrepreneurship should be encouraged and get rewarded. Being smart with the stock market is not a bad thing. Most people who earn a lot give away to the less fortunate. Bill gates is a case in point; he was a great entrepreneur and earned a lot with smart products and services which we all use. Now he and his wife give away to worthwhile projects while having a good life. The foregoing are in a nutshell the elements of a great economy. Of course we need a system of social justice so that society helps the less fortunate. The unemployed gets help so that they have a reasonable life; they should get help so that they acquire the skills needed to get job. Practically all countries of the world today have so-called mixed economies with a public and private sector side by side. We do not need labels such as capitalism, socialism and communism; these are more political ideologies than economic creeds.
Excellent argument, well-presented with good examples. Should be required reading for students of economics and economists. There are too many billionaires in the world. The one percent needs to be moved a few percentage points.
Well-presented and engaging take of what has been plaguing humans since the creation of, well… money. What I admire most is Szykitka’s desire to tackle this problem with a plan towards a solution. The world needs more people like Szykitka . I will pass his website along to my contacts.
I do not believe that taking extreme views on money is helpful to the fundamental cause being advocated. I co-directed the UN-IMF-WB Program for UN Delegates for many years and while the IMF may not be perfect, it established a system which is working in all member countries around the world. Capitalism is not perfect but it is the best credo that we have. There is nothing wrong for bright people to make it big. Bill Ggates is a case in point; he made significant lasting contributions to IT. Member States of the UN have been working to improve the world situation and conditions in the Member States through efforts to achieve the so-called sustainable development goals (I shall add more on this subject in the comment section soon); progress made so far on acieving the SDGs is significant.
I have summarized my views on Money and Finance in the following note:
Money and Finance
by Frank Owarish, Ph.D., former Senior Economic Affairs Officer, United Nations; former Senior Professor, Finance at grad level (Basic and Advanced), Professor of Economics
Money is a fundamental concept in economics; it is also an essential practical tool. The underlying doctrines have evolved over the years with money assuming different roles.
Finance is also a key concept in economics, in fact economics and finance is construed as being the cornerstone of modern societies.
The International Monetary Fund created the monetary system in existence, functioning in all its member countries worldwide.
The World Bank has been playing a key role in finance.
Many thinkers have contributed to advance thinking about economics and finance, with some winning a Nobel Prize. Many of the thinkers have advocated debt as a way for companies to leverage to go forward, at times with negative consequences. Some of the thinkers have advocated finance as an end in itself instead of being an instrument for use. And thus companies set a goal in maximizing finance and producing goods and offering services to a minimal extent. Therefore accumulating money becomes an end in itself. The role of money as an instrument for exchange is progressively replaced by the use of credit and debit cards.
There are economic disparities and these need to be addressed.
In the spirit of full disclosure, Dr. Owarish and I have worked together over the past 25 years on a number of projects in the advancement of international trade an economic development, including leading a delegation to Japan that persuaded the Japanese government to approve the establishment of 31 Foreign Access Zones throughout the country to facilitate imports as a way of addressing a troubling trade imbalance. While we collaborated on these worthwhile efforts, we also discussed the reasons the financial system has failed to fulfill the promise of our scientific knowledge and technological expertise. This is an issue on which we disagreed and one that I believe can no longer be avoided. So I welcome his comments here as part of what I hope will become a larger conversation.
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/
This clear and concise explanation of the difference between finance and economics goes to the heart of the immense global challenges we face. We have enough to meet everyone’s needs (but not their “greeds”) AND combat the climate crisis at the same time!
Excellent points if I may say so. About greed, I remember that Michael Douglas video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGPLidFZ60
SI well remember that scene in the 1987 film “Wall Street”, the highlight of the film and completely relevant today. Should be watched by everyone. Kudos to Oliver Stone who wrote and directed it.
There are two versions; the earlier one promoting that greed is good and the more recent version promoting that greed is not good. I do no remember specific dates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgGPLidFZ60
You have obviously spent a great deal of time thinking about and working toward a world in which everyone will have what they need to thrive and live in peace. An admirable idea. It is hard to imagine such a world; you and others have done so, in one form or another. Such “imaginings”, such creative thinking, can inspire one to do as much as possible to help preserve and enhance life, to ensure the survival of our earth home. Thank you, Walter
Thank you for your comments. What Walter has done and is doing is very commendable indeed. I am a former senior official of the United Nations; still work on UN Projects. The UN is getting all the countries of the world to work each and together to pursue goals which have been delineated jointly. I am sure that these two sets of efforts will converge at some point; I know that Walter attended several meetings at the UN on sustainable development goals
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/
You’ve done it: Stripped bare the essence the source of our greed, our competition run amok, our failure to see beyond the urge to merely provide,
to succeed, to attain wealth, to achieve fame, to outdo the other, to disregard suffering and pain and want, to need more and ever more –
well beyond comfort And now all that rampant, thoughtless, heedless, selfish competition in search for the almighty money has come home
in the emergence of a Planet Earth that is suddenly, not so slowly becoming uninhabitable.
You’ve done it: Stripped bare the essence the source of our greed, our competition run amok, our failure to see beyond the urge to merely provide,
to succeed, to attain wealth, to achieve fame, to outdo the other, to disregard suffering and pain and want, to need more and ever more –
well beyond comfort And now all that rampant, thoughtless, heedless, selfish competition in search for the almighty money has come home
in the emergence of a Planet Earth that is suddenly, not so slowly becoming uninhabitable.
Though it may be the original “currency,” labor is no longer an effective mode of exchange because labor has declined in value so much that we’re literally on the brink of a world where labor is utterly unnecessary due to advanced automation and artificial consciousness and intelligence capable of making decisions faster and with more nuance than the human mind. There’s no reason for anyone to support the underclass of workers and strivers at this point. Get whatever resources and wealth you can muster, go into a bunker, and let the world’s declining civilizations burn in their own uselessness. You’ll eventually emerge to a less populated, more sustainable and more peaceful planet. None of this requires an abandonment of what’s deemed “moneyism” in any of its manifestations.